Safe Mode

If OCPN is starting after a crash, and the “Safe Mode” prompt pops up, selecting “YES” only disables plugin loading and that is all it does.

The “safe mode” logic was designed and implemented to protect against rogue plugins only, and that is all it is meant to do. No other run-time configurations should be affected by the choice of “yes” to the dialog.

Beware RPI 4: Answering “yes” rewrote the config file removing all chart locations.(currently, will be fixed in next release)

Recent PR not released

See the PR for Save Mode 

  Add a new command line option --safe_mode.  (This CLI will also turn off OpenGL.)
  Check if last opencpn run failed and offer user to run in safe mode if so.
  In safe mode, disable plugin loading and OpenGL.

There are ideas to also block Connections in safe mode. This is not implemented.

Backup your Config File

This can save work!

On a regular basis, when O is going smoothly:

  1. Close it gracefully
  2. Open the opencpn dir
  3. Copy the opencpn.conf (or .ini /OS depending) and save it in a “Backup” dir.
  4. This is to be repeated after updates, new version or any impacting change…

One example, when the “safe mode” has hit you :

  1. Restart OpenCPN even in safe mode, then quit normally,
  2. Copy the opencpn.conf/ini from your Backup dir,
  3. Paste it in the opencpn dir, confirm overwrite…

O will rebuild database on next start, et voilà ! (not an ideal solution, but it works !)

Script to backup the confg file

Having the windows systems running (great tip is to use the batch script instead of the explorer.exe in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogo→Shell) we are using this batch script: 

@echo off
 Rem This script handles the startup and shutdown of OpenCPN. It takes care of config files and avoids OpenCPN asking for Safe Mode
:Start
Rem Copy the the running config into place (D: is a SD Card Drive)
IF EXIST D:\opencpn.ini (COPY /Y D:\opencpn.ini C:\ProgramData\opencpn\)
Rem If OpenCPN has failed, the startcheck.dat file will be there, so delete it.
IF EXIST C:\ProgramData\opencpn\startcheck.dat (DEL C:\ProgramData\opencpn\startcheck.dat)
Rem Start OpenCPN in fullscreen and wait for exit
START /D "C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenCPN" /REALTIME /WAIT /B C:"\Program Files (x86)"\OpenCPN\opencpn.exe /fullscreen
Rem Do we have a normal exit?
IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 (
   Rem No
ECHO OpenCPN exited abnormal with code %ERRORLEVEL%
) ELSE (
  Rem Yes, so store away the working config file
COPY /Y C:\ProgramData\opencpn\opencpn.ini D:\
)
Rem Restart after 5 seconds
TIMEOUT /T 5
GOTO:Start

It would make some sense to compare the config files initially before copying them but my batch scripting is not that good.